In this post we will see a wonderfully illustrated book Cells, Cells And More Cells by P. Katin.

Do you have a mirror at home? Go and take a good look at yourself. There is your nose, your ears, your eyes and your mouth. If the mirror is large or if you have already crawled up on a chair, then you can see your shoulders, your arms and your stomach. Where did all those different parts of you come from? They simply grew. Remember, you were smaller on your last birthday than you are now. And your arms were smaller, and your legs, and your ears, and even your nose. And two years ago on your birthday you were even smaller. You probably don’t remember what you looked like three years ago. But believe me (and if you don’t, ask your mother, or father or grandmother) before that you were very small. And before that? Before that you were very tiny, smaller than the smallest dot on a piece of paper. And you can’t give that dot legs or arms or a nose. Not because the pencil is too thick, but because you did not have them then. And you didn’t have ears, or eyes, or a stomach. You were a cell. One tiny, little cell.

If you want to know what a cell is and where it came from, read further.

The book was published by Raduga in 1990 and was translated from the Russian by Tracy Kuehn. The wonderful illustrations are by Victor Korolkov.